POULET RÔTI [Roast Chicken]
You can always judge the quality of a cook or a restaurant by roast chicken. While it does not require years of training to produce a juicy, brown, buttery, crisp-skinned, heavenly bird, it does entail such a greed for perfection that one is under compulsion to hover over the bird, listen to it, above all see that it is continually basted, and that it is done just to the proper turn. Spit roasting, where the chicken is wrapped in fat and continually rotated, is far less exacting than oven roasting where you must constantly turn and baste.
Small French chickens are frequently roasted without a stuffing. The cavity is seasoned with salt and butter, and the skin rubbed with butter. For oven roasting, it is browned lightly for 10 to 15 minutes at a temperature of 425 degrees, then the temperature is reduced to 350, and the chicken is turned and basted until it is done. A simple, short deglazing sauce is made with stock and the juices in the pan, giving just a scant spoonful for each serving.